Historically, polling, survey, and market research activities and services have been performed using traditional market research methodologies. These polling methodologies include the use of direct mail questionnaires, telephone surveys, in person interviews, and focus group activities.
Polling activities have broad application. They provide information about opinions, experiences, and attitudes of people around the world to the media, corporations, government authorities, political organizations, groups, and non-profit entities.
Objectives of these polling activities include the delivery of accurate and objective data with low margins of error about preferences, needs, behavior, knowledge, and recognition with respect to the subject matter of a poll and the development of information useful for demographic analyses. This data and information is, in turn, the means by which end points such as approval and satisfaction, advertising, competitive position, product performance, job performance, and price sensitivity ratings can be identified and assessed both in the aggregate and among demographic subgroups corresponding to the Participant population.
Traditional methodologies have practical limitations. The acquisition of polling data is costly, time consuming, generally based on small sample sizes and subject to the influences of interviewer bias. Moreover, consumers of polling information such as the media, political organizations, and corporations are operating in an increasingly competitive environment in which poll Participant preferences may change rapidly and significantly, while at the same time, response rates in connection with traditional polling methodologies are declining. Accordingly, polling assignments requiring large numbers of survey Participants, those requiring quick turnaround times, and those involving sensitive subject matter, may be impractical, may be prohibitively expensive, or may yield results with unacceptably high margins of error.
The Internet offers the potential to revolutionize traditional polling methodologies. Using the Internet, large numbers of Participants may be surveyed rapidly, economically and at the convenience of the Participant. Additionally, the combination of Internet, electronic mail, and database technologies supplies the means for flexible polling and survey systems to target and deliver large numbers of surveys to hundreds of thousands or even millions of Participants quickly and efficiently, as well as to collect and collate responses and perform follow up as needed. Most significantly, these technologies potentially enable the efficient generation of far greater amounts of useful demographic data about Participants to create demographic profiles corresponding to any number of Participant characteristics than might otherwise be feasible using traditional survey methodologies.
However, Internet polling activities, which are still in their infancy, have significant limitations at present. Internet polls often place few or no controls on the number of times an individual user may register to participate in a pollster's Internet surveys or submit a survey response. Nor are there typically controls on the authenticity of the identification or demographic information provided by the Participant. Also lacking are security measures to protect the integrity of the data gen rated by Internet pollsters. In addition, a systematic method to produce a demographic profile corresponding to an accumulation of validatable response data from poll Participants is not in use on the Internet.
Furthermore, potential poll Participants may be reluctant to participate in Internet polls because of privacy concerns. In the important area of political polling, privacy concerns of poll Participants are especially acute.